Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to management of computing resources in a client-server environment and, in particular to techniques for authenticating non browser-based clients to web applications.
Background of the Related Art
User authentication to a web application from other than a browser-based client is desirable. In particular, it is known in the prior art to integrate Web- or cloud-based applications with so-called “rich” clients, where a “rich” client is a client (of a client-server application) that supports its own interface (as opposed to merely exporting the web interface from the web application itself). A “rich” client typically is not browser-based, and it is sometimes referred to as a “thick” (as compared to a browser-based or “thin”) client. An illustrative rich client is Lotus Notes®, which provides email, calendaring, contact management, and instant messaging. Although a rich client can be used to access and automatically perform actions on behalf of a user, with existing technologies it is difficult to integrate a client-server application with a web application.